A Good Way To Leverage A Microsite

The LA Philharmonic recently launched a dedicated microsite for their Centennial Campaign (an endowment capitalization campaign) and it’s a good example for how to go about designing a purpose built microsite.

Each page is comparatively short and contains big, obvious conversion targets (making an online donation). It’s a very nice mobile first design that clearly resists the urge to stuff a desktop heavy content approach into mobile layouts.

If there’s one area where arts orgs could benefit, it’s finding ways to leverage short term, purpose-built microsites. Capital campaigns are an obvious choice, but other projects include season launch and season-in-review sites, fundraising events, tours, competitions, etc.

In short, anything that would benefit from its own branded look and has extraordinarily clear conversion targets is an ideal target for a microsite.

As part of my work with our Venture Platform users, identifying areas where they could benefit from a microsite is something we continuously work on. And once organizations start to see how easy it is to repurpose designs from one microsite project to the next, it isn’t long before they begin to increase their project ROI.

Even better, you don’t have to go with slick looking animations like the LA Phil microsite. If you have the budget, great, but it’s certainly not a necessity.

If you’ve never considered using a project-specific microsite before, do yourself a favor and think about it.

About Drew McManus

"I hear that every time you show up to work with an orchestra, people get fired." Those were the first words out of an executive's mouth after her board chair introduced us. That executive is now a dear colleague and friend but the day that consulting contract began with her orchestra, she was convinced I was a hatchet-man brought in by the board to clean house.

I understand where the trepidation comes from as a great deal of my consulting and technology provider work for arts organizations involves due diligence, separating fact from fiction, interpreting spin, as well as performance review and oversight. So yes, sometimes that work results in one or two individuals "aggressively embracing career change" but far more often than not, it reinforces and clarifies exactly what works and why.

In short, it doesn't matter if you know where all the bodies are buried if you can't keep your own clients out of the ground, and I'm fortunate enough to say that for more than 15 years, I've done exactly that for groups of all budget size from Qatar to Kathmandu.

For fun, I write a daily blog about the orchestra business, provide a platform for arts insiders to speak their mind, keep track of what people in this business get paid, help write a satirical cartoon about orchestra life, hack the arts, and love a good coffee drink.

PROFESSIONAL DISCLOSUREGiven the author’s position as an arts consultant and technology provider, he does not publish articles examining or focusing on current clients without first obtaining the client’s written permission.

EDITORIAL COMMITMENT In order to ensure accuracy and provide a comprehensive perspective on any topic, I allow any individual or person officially representing an organization that appears in any Adaptistration article to submit a response which will be published, unedited. Responses are limited to 200 words and must address the issues at hand and the individuals and/or organizations must also be willing to maintain an open dialog for continued discussion.

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